


Pain Produces Progress

by broadwanime



Series: Role Reversal Series [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-25
Updated: 2013-06-25
Packaged: 2017-12-16 03:25:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/857211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/broadwanime/pseuds/broadwanime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alastair and Dean become a little more acquainted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pain Produces Progress

**Author's Note:**

> Second in the Role Reversal Series. Title comes from a quote by Jarod Kintz.

Dean loved every single one of his siblings, but he could not deny his fondness for Sam even if he wanted to. Sam was… He’d been brilliant. Beautiful, vibrant. His grace had stretched longer than any other angel Dean had seen, despite how young he was.

He’d been fascinated by everything: the tiny grains of sand, the rocks weathered away by the river, bird songs, lizard’s scales. Most of all, Sam loved humanity. The funny way their crawling turned to walking, the way they kissed and clung, their dances. Sam loved it all.

The other angels mocked him for it, Zachariah especially. He thought because he was older he could pick on the rest of them, especially naïve, little Samael for wanting to play in the mud with the pigs their Father created. Dean did his best to protect him, but it didn’t matter. It still got to Sam in the end.

They were watching the fireflies in mid-July when he asked, “Why do we never see our Father?”

Dean floundered, the heat gnawing away at the back of his grace. “We operate on faith. That is how we were made.”

Sam tossed a stone across the lake. “Pretty stupid way to be made, don’t you think?”

“Sam – “

“I know.” The fireflies whispered through them, chittering through the sounds of the crickets’ chirps. “It’s just – “

Dean sighed. “Sam, don’t.”

The younger angel ignored him. He was far too good at that. “It’s just… It feels like He’s telling us we’re not good enough, but how can we be, if He’s not here to guide us? How are we supposed to be great if we have no idea what greatness is?”

“Humanity has gotten by,” Dean reminded him.

Sam’s grace flickered. “That is different. We are supposed to know better. We look down on them and all we see is corruption and war, and we call them no more than animals. But look at us, Dean. Are we any different?”

Dean shifted warily. The soft breath of wind did nothing against the unfathomable heat of summer tearing him apart piece by piece, nor did it do anything to lighten the load of Sam’s words. He knew things in Heaven weren’t perfect, but it was better than here. It had to be. It was all Dean knew.

The streaks of light across the night sky were a welcome distraction. It started as one thin trail, then another, until the horizon was covered with falling stars. This was what the two angels had come to see in the first place, not to have serious discussions that made Dean uncomfortable.

Dean sighed, his breath ghosting through with the wind. It was just as beautiful as the very first, and, yet, it was somehow better because Sam was here. It made him glow to share this with his youngest, favorite brother.

“Isn’t that pretty?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Sam whispered.

A mosquito bit the back of his neck. Odd, because he didn’t remember any mosquitos, and he didn’t have a neck to bite.

The sting came again, this time from the abdomen he shouldn’t have. Dean looked down, but all he could see was the glow of fireflies, a hopping cricket, his organs as they plopped wetly onto the grass below him –

“Sam!” Dean shouted. “Sam, please!”

But Sam told him, “I hope you’re happy,” which meant it was March, now, only it was too hot for early spring and his legs were going numb and he didn’t know how to breathe without his lungs or live alone and the air was boiling him alive –

“Are you with me again, sweetheart?” Alastair whispered in ear. “I thought I lost you for a second, and in the middle of a lesson, too.” He clucked his tongue reprovingly. “Naughty, naughty.”

Dean bit his tongue again to hold back the screams. He was unsure how the chains could still hold him upright when the nerves of his legs had been charred away with everything else, or how he could still be awake without a properly beating heart in his chest. He had stopped questioning a long time ago.

A paper-thin blade slid through the tattered remains of his torso, cleaning up the jagged strands of muscle like the insides of a carved pumpkin. “Always tidy it up, my dove,” Alastair hummed. “You can be as messy as you want, but make it pretty in the end. It’s all about presentation, you see.”

He pushed the long instrument straight through Dean’s spine and pulled away, leaving the handle to hover somewhere near where the angel’s lungs used to be. He wiped his hands clean on a rag and smiled reassuringly at Dean. “Don’t worry; I won’t be leaving that there forever. Would get a tad boring, don’t you think?”

Alastair chuckled and walked out of Dean’s line of sight, no doubt getting another tool in order to carve Dean up some more. The angel took the time to enjoy the brief reprieve.

Alastair returned pushing a trolley on squeaky, sticky wheels. An elegant, covered tray sat atop with two flickering candles. Cinnamon wafted through Dean’s nose and he gagged at the sweetness of it. The scent didn’t sit well with the tang of burnt flesh.

The demon did not seem to notice, of course. He kept that bright, toothy smile glued to the angel’s face. “Presentation, you see?” He whisked the covering off of the tray, revealing a neat, pink pile drizzled in blood. Dean instantly recognized it as his own heart, chopped into perfect square pieces. He swallowed reflexively.

“Ah, you’re hungry! Of course you are! You haven’t eaten in days. Actually – you haven’t ever eaten, have you? No need to while you’re up on your fluffy white cloud. Oh!” Alastair rolls his neck and chuckled coldly. “Oh, this will be a treat!”

He pulled a napkin out from the tray and tucked it under Dean’s chin. His breath scratched Dean’s three-week-old stubble as he tacked the fabric into place with fat needles through the angel’s shoulders. He rubbed his hands together, Dean’s blood squelching between his palms.

“Let’s get started, shall we?” Alastair stuck a perfect, silver fork through one of the perfect, pink squares, raising it delicately to Dean’s lips. As it moved closer, Dean could see how it somehow still quivered to a pulse. Bile tickled the roof of his mouth.

“Isn’t that pretty?” Alastair murmured, delighting in Dean’s resulting shudder. He leaned closer and showed off his jagged, yellowing smile. “Now, say ah…”

 

It was to be Hellhounds today. Dean had angered Alastair with his refusal to scream, and the demon was going to punish him accordingly. There would be no careful slicing with too-sharp instruments, nor would his liver be cooked and fed to him with a side of fava beans and a nice Chianti. Dean did not understand that reference anymore than he enjoyed the taste of his liver slithering down his esophagus, anymore than he enjoyed being torn about by ravenous beasts.

Hellhounds were hungry. Always so, so hungry. Dean remembered when he could destroy them with a snap of his fingers. He imagined he could feel grace surging to his fingertips as the flesh of his stomach was clawed away, imagined that the warmth of blood and the chewed goo of small intestines were the beasts’ instead of his own.

He imagined the sky as Michael taught him about cumulonimbus and thunder. He heard Muriel’s giggles as she played through summer. He felt Sam’s grace brushing against his as more than stars fell to Earth.

It was the first day of his creation and the rain was cool against his grace and if he squinted through the clouds, he could see his Father’s smile in the stars. And he wanted to stay, he needed to stay, but the air started to boil and the birds songs turned to screams, please don’t make him go, please don’t –

Dean screwed his eyes shut and focused away from the crunch of gnashing teeth. He thought on the feeling of wind crashing through his grace. He imagined flying toward the endless blue sky, to the broken sea that melted into Righteousness and a tug at Dean’s impossible, not-quite-beating heart. He basked in it, swaddled himself in sapphire like he was a newly made fledgling and for a moment, it was almost enough.

Except if there was one thing Dean had learned in Hell, it was that angels could not save themselves.

It said a lot about the hellhounds that the metal of Alastair’s knife on his cheek felt like a blessing. His stomach was a hollow thing and his lungs caught the red light as he panted for breath. Alastair smiled. Dean saw the dull edges of his canines and tried to shove the relief away.

“You keep disappearing on me, angel,” the demon drawled. “Makes me wonder where you’ve been going off to. Won’t you tell me? Pretty please…” The flat of the blade lovingly stroked Dean’s cheek, tilting occasionally so the sharp edge could make patterns with blood droplets. Alastair’s breath fogged the metal, warm and wet like the rest of Hell. “With your liver on top?”

Dean said nothing. Alastair smiled in return. “More of the silent treatment, I see. Haven’t even cut your tongue out but you just keep on biting it. Wonder if you’ve torn it straight through, yet. I’ve had that happen before. Always easier than it sounds.”

Alastair pried Dean’s lips open with his fingers, marveled at the shiny pink inside. “What do you know? Bruised but still whole.” Dean jerked his head away and Alastair drew back, palms raised as if in apology while his eyes danced. “So touchy! I just wanted a peek… this time.”

Dean glared with narrowed eyes and a pinched mouth. The demon chortled with delight. “Still so silent! Is that your M.O., dove? Mask all that dreary pain of yours?” The screams of the damned were his only response, but that was no deterrent to a demon, particularly one of Alastair’s caliber. He just pressed on, hissing, “Oh, sweetheart. Can’t you see the truth right in front of you?”

Dean’s upper lip curled into a sneer. Alastair chuckled and flicked his favorite knife through stubble. “Oh, you are learning far faster than I had hoped, you precious thing.” The demon moved in close and a too long pink tongue licked away red lines of copper from Dean’s cheek. The angel recoiled and Alastair purred his pleasure, nuzzling his way into Dean’s neck.

“The truth is,” he whispered conspiratorially, “you fight and fight for your little family upstairs, for the… Righteous Man.” He giggled, the sound akin to nails scratching on a chalkboard. “And they don’t need you. Not like you need them. Did you notice no one’s been down to save you? Castiel doesn’t even know – doesn’t care – who you are. Assuming he’s even found his way out of Hell. It’s an awfully long way up, after all.”

Dean’s chains rattled. The angel hadn’t even realized he was struggling away until Alastair broke his wrists to stop the jangle of rusted steel. Dean managed to keep his howls clammed down in the back of his throat, told himself it was just another hindrance like the rest of his injuries.

“Careful,” Alastair chided. “Your weaknesses are showing, and they’re not nearly as pretty as your lungs are. People - demons - ” he corrected with a grin, his eyes flashing white, “might see that. Use it against you.” He twirled with his knife, tucking the hilt behind his splattered ear. He liked to be up close and personal even if he wasn’t directly involved in the torture.

“It’s nothing you need to worry about just yet, of course,” he admitted. “It’ll keep.” Alastair raised his fingers and smiled sharply. “Now, where were we?”

The hellhounds lunged.


End file.
